The establishment of a new EU diplomatic corps–the European External Action Service–under the leadership of a strengthened high representative represents a landmark in European foreign policy. As the corps takes formation this spring, Federiga Bindi, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings, and her co-authors have assessed the EU’s progress over the past decade in managing its external relations in their new book, The Foreign Policy of the European Union–Assessing Europe’s Role in the World (Brookings Press, 2009).

On April 8, 2010, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings and the Heinrich Böll Foundation held a panel discussion to launch the book and discuss the past, present and future of EU foreign policy. This panel is part of an ongoing joint series of briefings and discussions on the future of the European Union. The discussion featured Giuliano Amato, former Italian prime minister, who wrote a preface for the book; Andrew Moravcsik, professor at Princeton, who contributed to the book; Dan Hamilton, director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations; and Pierre Vimont, the French ambassador to the United States. Michael Calingaert, a visiting scholar in CUSE, introduced the panel, and Federiga Bindi moderated the discussion.